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It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

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Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#151

Post by redcircle »

DannoHung wrote: post #150
badclient wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if your workplace environment really doesn't permit that, move on. Doing just that :) It's basically a startup with 10 of us where I am the only in house developer. I've tried many things like asking folks to Skype me instead of walking over to my desk or calling my name. I've gone to great lengths to get em to understand why skyping to get my attention is different than other ways. None of these guidelines reall…

On this subject: Whenever someone chats me in the following manner, I want to kill them. Straight up. Just fucking take an ice pick and jab it right through their skull: Other Dude: Hi. Me: Hello A minute elapses Other Dude: I'm having a problem Me: How can I help A minute elapses Other Dude: ACTUAL PROBLEM THAT THEY NEEDED HELP WITH Me: Oh, here is your resolution which took all of 15 seconds to give to you. WHAT TH…

This is why I stopped using all chat clients.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#152

Post by jrs235 »

mahyarm wrote: post #121
jrs235 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My place of employment is similar to yours, I've moved myself up the ladder in order to start isolating and enabling my dev team the peace and quiet they need to be most productive. What if, while you code, you think out loud, like really out loud... louder than you would talk in conversation? Perhaps if YOU bothered EVERYONE then maybe they'd put you in a private office? It's worth a try while you are looking for ot…

That kind of passive aggressiveness will make your coworkers hate you and could get you fired because they know you don't have to do that.

Apparently that passive aggressiveness already exists in his work place thanks to his bosses and co-workers... but some how you all fault him and say he can't share that same love?

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#153

Post by brudgers »

This is a case where programmers are overhead not production and the "system" is sized to handle peak loads.

Another way of looking at it, "It Takes 6 Days to Prevent Layoffs."

That's pretty damn efficient from a business standpoint.

And pretty damn important from a human one.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#154

Post by boyter »

gte910h wrote: post #79
boyter wrote: post #51

I just went through the same thing. Except I was smart (or so I thought) and had what I needed changed in a config file. PHB decided that it still counted as a "code" change because someone needed to log onto the box and change the config. Literally it was removing 3 characters from it. The only reason I even had it in the config was to avoid it being a code change to begin with. I argued back that in the time I woul…

Why stay?

Mostly due to certain parts of the job being very enjoyable and that this sort of thing isn't that big a bugbear for me to look... yet.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#155

Post by Homunculiheaded »

badclient wrote: post #105
pikewood wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This will keep happening if you keep saying OK. Try something like, "Can I get back to you in an hour? Boss wants me to finish this top priority item for him." And if Boss asks you if you can finish it next week, say no. You're being asked to give an estimate, and it doesn't help to say "Yes, if [this thing doesn't happen which I know it will]". If they want you to be the startup guy, then act like you're the one in…

That works until they goto the boss and the boss comes to me... "So I know your project is important but projectX is still our #1 priority so to the extent Jenny needs you please prioritize her work"

A better trick I discovered when I used to work in an environment closer to this was to always give the person requesting help some trivial but sincerely related task to do before you can help them, e.g. "can you just write down all the steps in the process before you get stuck, it will help me solve the problem", or "Hmm... I'm not quit getting the issue, can you draw me a diagram and then get back to me". This acts as a great filter for people that are just helpless versus people that really need help. And if anyone complains to the boss that you aren't helping, you can say "oh well did you do task X? that's really all I need from you to get started"

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#156

Post by [deleted] »

DannoHung wrote: post #150
badclient wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if your workplace environment really doesn't permit that, move on. Doing just that :) It's basically a startup with 10 of us where I am the only in house developer. I've tried many things like asking folks to Skype me instead of walking over to my desk or calling my name. I've gone to great lengths to get em to understand why skyping to get my attention is different than other ways. None of these guidelines reall…

On this subject: Whenever someone chats me in the following manner, I want to kill them. Straight up. Just fucking take an ice pick and jab it right through their skull: Other Dude: Hi. Me: Hello A minute elapses Other Dude: I'm having a problem Me: How can I help A minute elapses Other Dude: ACTUAL PROBLEM THAT THEY NEEDED HELP WITH Me: Oh, here is your resolution which took all of 15 seconds to give to you. WHAT TH…

[deleted]

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#157

Post by rickmb »

sax wrote: post #78
badclient wrote: post #52

This shit happens at my job and leaves me feeling depressed and at times questioning my own skills because I know and my bosses know that on my part, I just had to make a tiny, tiny change. But when you have a dozen such experiences, I feel like something is wrong with me because when the dust settles, this was a one line code change that took me a week to push to production. It also makes my bosses question my estim…

Just curious how many other folks see similar patterns of interruption? (i do)

I see the familiar pattern of programmers not saying "no" and not explaining clearly what they need to work.

None of the other people here are being particularly unreasonable, they're just ignorant. And given that "how to work with programmers, writers and mathematicians" is not part of any educations, it's not really their fault.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#158

Post by rickmb »

dools wrote: post #93

I seriously don't see the problem. The author seems to be assuming that taking 6 days to have a change made is objectively bad. Does the company run? Does it make money? Do the systems work and stuff? Well, if whatever you're doing now to keep the systems working and the company running and making money obviously works so I'd say it's objectively good. The experience may feel bad subjectively but how you feel is of t…

Besides that, most of the delay in this story was not caused by process but by human error and sloppy work by the OP.

There are some hints of organizational dysfunctions along the way, but those were not what caused the major delays.

Without those screw ups, it would have been 2 to 3 days from decision to production. That's pretty decent for any company larger than a 10 people start up.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#159

Post by dsrguru »

badclient wrote: post #52

This shit happens at my job and leaves me feeling depressed and at times questioning my own skills because I know and my bosses know that on my part, I just had to make a tiny, tiny change. But when you have a dozen such experiences, I feel like something is wrong with me because when the dust settles, this was a one line code change that took me a week to push to production. It also makes my bosses question my estim…

Just out of curiosity, and this is something I've been meaning to ask for a while, how does the whole startup only having one tech guy (who isn't a founder) work? I've seen this scenario referenced many times on HN and I'm still having trouble picturing what the incentives are to work for such a company (as opposed to being made a cofounder) when it sounds to me like you're doing at least as much work as they are. I would normally think the sum total of all development (I'm lumping things like specs, coding, documenting, and testing all together) to be at the very least close to 50% of a startup's value, so if there is only one developer, he or she would seem to be worth about half the company. Is this kind of startup less software oriented than the kind I'm describing?

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#160

Post by yason »

Excess code review rules and company policies are, in effect, a defense against the stupid. They're in place to limit or slow down the damage potentially done by stupid employees.

However, they're also a defense against the smart.

If there's a barrier erected to weed out stupid changes the barrier works to weed out smart changes as well. The barrier can't distinguish smart changes from stupid changes, and the people operating the barrier can't easily do that either since their asses are on the line in case they miss a bad change. As you can see, even the word of a higher manager can't change that since the defenses are spread out so wide: there's always some additional policy that requires more and more authorization from more and more people.

Good systems always support skunkworks approaches where good programmers have an unofficial half-sanctioned way to subvert the policies when needed.

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